Selling a Home in New Jersey Comes Down to Price

The expression “You only get one chance to make a first impression” oftenappears to be true when pricing a property. Deciding on an asking price iscritical to selling property.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Development, an estimated367,000 new homes were sold in 2012. This is 19.9 percent above the 2011figure of 306,000.

This means that more there are more buyers, but also 20% more sellers.

How you distinguish your home in a buyer’s market is critical.

The key is to remember the objective is to effect a transaction, not a competition. You willhave a sense of what is fair, what is do-able and even what is the right price point – onlyremember, the market is never stationary. It is fluid, and you have to price your property withthat context in mind.

FSBO Pricing: The Bottom Line

Some people believe that pricing a property too high is better than pricing it too low. But everyprice should already have factored into it the figure you have to have in your hand at the endof the transaction.

Level One: How to Research Your Market Value in New Jersey

Current Market Value is based on demand, trends, buying cycles, economic trends and UVP(unique value proposition) of your property. Depending upon the state of the market, mostasking prices are usually higher than the market value and range between 1% and 10%higher. The reason to price the property is to allow for negotiation.

There are a number of resources online that you can try, but if you estimate that your house’svalue is greater than $300,000, we recommend using a professional to provide you with a fairassessment. There are resources such as Zillow and Trulia, but for a solid benchmark of yourhome’s value, get it professionally assessed. NJ-FSBO has several individuals who can providethis for you at a reasonable price. Your home appraisal will use sale prices, not asking prices,of homes in your market. This is much more realistic when deciding on your selling price.

Contained within the report will be a section on "comparables," which are the homes similar toyours which have recently sold.

Here are some easy to use resources:

1. homes.yahoo.com/home-worth2. www.homesandland.com/HomeValuations.cfm3. realestate.msn.com4. eppraisal.com5. www.zillow.com6. realestatecenter.bankofamerica.com/tools/marketvalue.aspx7. www.housevalues.com

NJ-FSBO – New Jersey’s Home Owners Informational Resource Exchange

Level Two: Own Your Price

Conviction, confidence and comparables (AKA comps) will provide the foundation for yourbottom-line price. There are times when you may have to drop your selling price, but Iwouldn’t do it without some sort of give-back. The value of the house is based upon a numberof factors: what you paid for the property, what the other houses are selling for, is the marketin an up-cycle, how motivated is the seller, and of course how much do you owe on thepresent property? The fact is that today, yours is not the only house that the buyers areconsidering.

Level Three: Your Selling BudgetMarketing costs money. You don’t want to waste time AND money; so make a list of differentvenues and ways to publicize your property to potential buyers. This may include the following:

FlyersSignsAdvertising on various sites on the InternetListing on NJ-FSBO

Level Four: Our Secret Formula – Do a Test Run-Through with a Staged Buyer

This is a great way to have someone looking at your house from the perspective of puttingtheir money down to acquire it from you. Remember, the biggest thinking shift is to NOT thinkof someone in your house as a guest. They are a customer. Treat them like a customer, whichmeans get their names, contact information, and ask them to have a look around.

Don’t follow them around. Let them ‘discover’ their new home. It is important to detach fromthe ownership cues that normally most home owners give off. Think of yourselves as theresident ‘house sitters.’

Make sure that everything you include in your flyer points to unique features, values anddistinctions, such as “Voted New Jersey’s Best Town” or “Voted New Jersey’s Best MiddleSchool.”

Get your lawn signs printed: make sure they have a URL, phone number and email.

NJ-FSBO is an online resource and arsenal specifically designed for the New Jersey home owner that islooking to market, improve, enhance and increase the value of their property whether the property is forsale or not. NJ-FSBO also includes a network of home-value specialists that are able to advise, assist orcontribute to the home’s appearance or sale.

NJ-FSBO includes: Online tools Information Marketing tools An compilation of online sources to aid property valuation A listing resource for promoting FSBO properties

For information please call 732 or email us info@nj-fsbo.com. Follow us on Twitter @NJFSBO.